Zarif stretches as he awakens. Yesterday was interesting. After the sorting and the feast, Professor Dumbledore announced what was going to happen this year. The Triwizard tournament for coming back after many years. This also meant there would be no Quidditch this year to many of the students' disappointment. However, it wasn't all good news as Hermione started talking about how house-elves are slave labor, and they needed to be freed. Zarif could only shake his head. What Hermione didn't understand is that this was a part of house elves' nature and magical contracts. Ancient magic that she couldn't just undo, like how slavery had primarily been undone in the world.
However, Zarif couldn't blame her. An upbringing in the muggle world most likely informed her about world history, as does her love of books. So she would read every inch and detail she would have back then. But in the wizarding world, centuries of magic, binding spells, and contracts are powerful. It is not something you can easily rip apart and be done with it. If you can try with magic, depending on what the level is, it could backfire badly or just send a spark. In time, people and creatures just got used to them all. Messy at first but soon calmed down.
One saying came to mind with anything she may have been planning. You could lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink. It would be all too apparent that was going to be what Hermione keeps running into. She also couldn't free any of them as she didn't own any of the house-elves. So she was most likely going to be flirting with a dangerous set of actions if she tried from backlash from the house elves and maybe even the magical contracts themselves. But there would be no talking Hermione out of this. She was at that age, after all.
The classes that started were already advanced. Hagrid brought out a new creature even. Blast-Ended Skrewts, a species he hadn't come across in his studies of magical creatures. They looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a potent smell of rotting fish. Now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.
Zarif was instantly drawn to them as he examined them. Some had stingers like a scorpion, while some had suckers. 'I smell the beginnings of poison. I think we have smelled this before,' Dreamer says. 'Of course, we have. It's Manticore poison,' Critic states. 'Most likely a hybrid of a manticore and some crustacean, I would guess,' Planner says, bending down for a closer look.
"On'y jus' hatched," Hagrid says proudly, "So yeh'll be able ter raise 'em yerselves! Thought we'd make a bit of a project of it!"
"And why would we want to raise them?" asks a cold voice.
Zarif looks up to see the Slytherins have arrived. The speaker is Dracona. Crabbe and Goyle are chuckling appreciatively at her words. Zarif walks up to Dracona and whispers, "Manticore crossbred with some sort of crustacean is our guess. Might be for the Triwizard tournament," Zarif then goes to find Merula and whispers the same thing to her. Dracona seems more hesitant to get near the creatures now as a result.
The lesson continues with Dracona not commenting anymore as if what Zarif guessed is correct; then they would be raising something for the Triwizard tournament. Though that didn't stop her from whispering around, they were the spawn of some manticore which made most even more hesitant to go near.
After that is lunch which Zarif decides to be a bit cheeky and flies into the great hall in his eagle form and flies around the younger first years so they would watch him before touching down at his house's table. The first years all are talking about him, wondering whose pet he is as Elixir keeps themselves wrapped around him until he transforms before their now saucer-sized eyes back to human with a smirk. "Alright, Zarif. Stop showing off," Cedric said, amused as he walked by, knowing he was trying to inspire the younger students a bit.
Zarif grins over to Cedric. "Come on. You know, for first years, they would want to try it when they could," he retorts as he gives a wink to all the first years staring at him.
"Club meeting tomorrow night, by the way, since no Quidditch practice this year," Cedric informs before heading off to his own house's table.
"Right," Zarif calls as he goes to get some food for himself. Most of it, though, he hears from students like Fred and George what Moody's class is like and how experienced he is.
Thursday comes soon enough, and finally, they would get to see Moody's teaching style. Dracona is a bit on edge as they enter. Zarif wonders if she knew Moody by reputation from her parents and that he is not someone to mess with. Everyone has copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection and waits, unusually quiet. Soon they hear Moody's distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he enters the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
"You can put those away," he growled, stomping over to his desk and sitting down, "Those books. You won't need them."
All students return the books to their bags, Ron looking excited. Moody takes out a register, shakes his long mane of grizzled gray hair out of his twisted and scarred face, and begins to call out names, his normal eye moving steadily down the list while his magical eye swivels around, fixing upon each student as they answer.
"Right then," he calls, when the last person has declared themselves present, "Professor Moody, Ex-Aurora, Ministry malcontent, and your new defense against the dark arts teacher," he finishes as he writes his name on the board and turns to the class. "I've had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. It seems you've had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling dark creatures…you've covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?"
The response is murmurs of assent.
"But you're behind, very behind, on dealing with curses," Moody says. "So, straight into it. Curses. They come in many strengths and forms. Now, according to the Ministry of Magic, I'm supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I'm not supposed to show you what illegal dark curses look like until you're in the sixth year. You're not supposed to be old enough to deal with it till then. But Professor Dumbledore's got a higher opinion of your nerves, he reckons you can cope, and I say, the sooner you know what you're up against, the better," Moody informs.
"Knowledge of how to counter something is about as useful as not knowing, unless we know what the curse looks like or motions for it," Zarif says in agreement as Moody continues writing something on the board.
"Absolutely correct. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you've never seen? A wizard who's about to put an illegal curse on you isn't going to tell you what he's about to do. He's not going to do it nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared. You need to be alert and watchful. You need to find somewhere else to put your gum beside the underside of your desk, Mr. Finnigan," Moody says, not even bothering to look back, causing everyone to look back at him, seeing him do just that in surprise at being found out.
"Oh, no way," Seamus whispers to the student beside him. "The codger can see out the back of his head," he says, trying to keep his voice low before crying out as a chalk piece smacks against his head. "Ow!"
"And hear across classrooms!" Moody yells, not looking amused in the slightest at hearing those words. He then huffs and grabs another chalk, and finishes writing down what he needs on the board. "I believe in the practical use of this class. Weasley, stand," Moody says, having moved to the front of his and Harry's shared desk after tossing the chalk back onto the bottom of the board. "Give us one of the three unforgivable curses," Moody instructs.
"Well…my dad did tell me of one. The Imperious curse," Ron answers with some shaky fear in his voice. This kind of tone Zarif can tell it must be because Arthur told him of what the curse entails and what the result is of the unfortunate victims.
"Ah, yes, your father and many of the ministry would know all about that one," Moody says, heading back to his desks and bringing out three containers, each having a giant black spider in each. Moody reaches into one of the jars, catches one of the spiders, and holds it in the palm of his hand so that they can all see it. He then points his wand at it and mutters, "Imperio!" The spider leaps, almost floaty, from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and begins to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretches out its legs rigidly, then does a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it begins to cartwheel in circles before flying at Zarif. Zarif himself didn't budge, but out from his collar came Elixir, each of the heads launching themselves at the spider, trying to snap their jaws onto it and tear the thing apart. Before they could do so, Moody pulled the spider away, making it float around in the air after seeing the tiny creature and recognizing what it was. All three heads strike the desk, with Zarif giving an amused expression at their disappointed look.
Course, it didn't end there as Moody changes tactics a little and makes the spider land on Ron's and Harry's desk with a shock from them before the little eight legs start to tap and dance on the wood. Zarif snarks as he guesses this is from their experience in the Forbidden Forest they told about at one point and Ron's fear of spiders as he can see the whimpering expression on his face. Even at this point, everyone laughs at both the spider and Ron's fearful state, mainly from the Slytherins.
Everyone is laughing, everyone except Moody as he flicks his wand around to move the little guy. "Think it's funny, do you?" he growls. "Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balls itself up and begins to roll over and over before flicking it towards the windows as his whisper is surprisingly heard above the laughter. "What next? Make them jump out the window?" he suggests as the spider smacks against one of the glass lenses on the window table. All the laughter dies down immediately with the thought of the curses being used on them. "Drown itself," he breathes out, letting it drop and hover over a pail of water as the spider tries to reach out and grab the edges, even flinching away from the water. Moody slowly floats the spider back to his hand as he looks at everyone with a particular gaze to insinuate and drive the point home. "Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," Moody explains, not daring to look to either Merula or Dracona, "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will. This is why we have so many death eaters still on the loose, as shown by the massive embarrassment we suffered at the Quidditch world cup when they decided to go on a rampage!" Moody calls, slamming his hand on his desk to drive the point home.
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. Constant Vigilance!" Moody exclaims again as he writes things about the Imperius curse on the board.
Moody picks up the somersaulting spider and throws it back into the jar. "Anyone else knows one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again, but to the surprise of Zarif, as did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information is Herbology, which is easily his best subject. Neville himself looks surprised at his daring as he glances at his raised hand for a moment.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye-rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one. The Cruciatus Curse…" said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
Moody is looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes. "Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to recheck the register.
Neville nods nervously, but Moody makes no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reaches into the jar for the next spider and places it upon the desktop, where it remains motionless, apparently too scared to move. Somehow, as if it knew what was coming. "The Cruciatus Curse. It will need to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swells in size, now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushes his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible. Moody raises his wand again, points it at the spider, and mutters, "Crucio!" At once, the spider's legs bend in upon its body; it rolls over and begins to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound comes from it, but Harry is sure that if it could have given a voice, it would have been screaming. Moody does not remove his wand, and the spider starts to shudder and jerk more violently, almost collapsing under its weight.
"Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly.
Looking at her, everyone could see she wasn't looking at the spider, but at Neville, whose hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.
Moody raises his wand. The spider's legs relax, but they continue to twitch. "Reducio," Moody mutters, and the spider shrinks back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar. "Pain," Moody said softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. That one was prevalent once too. Right…anyone knows any others?"
Zarif doesn't know why, but he speaks up, saying what his studies had taught him. "Arguably the most widely used curse by Lord Voldemort and his followers, the death eaters. Avada Kedavra. The unblockable killing curse." Around him, everyone jumps in a bit of fright, not at the spell's name but at who Zarif has mentioned by name. Even Moody stands there a bit surprised.
"Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra," Moody says, before wordlessly reaching in and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers. Still, he traps it and places it upon the desktop of Harry's and Ron's desk. With Ron going even further back with his chair, but less so as there is something in the air that makes everyone stop and stare at the unfortunate spider. It starts to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface, trying to find an escape route.
Moody raises his wand, and there is a foreboding feeling in the air, but for Zarif, he blinks as he could swear he sees the shadowy outline of something standing beside the desk now. "Avada Kedavra!" Moody roars. A flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something is soaring through the air. Instantaneously the spider rolls over onto its back, unmarked by any damage but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries. Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skids toward him. But Zarif's eyes hadn't moved. The figure disappears in the flash of green. No one else seems to have noticed it, and Elixir looks like they were about to attack with their eyes glowing…the same green as what came from Moody's wand? All the while, Harry only stares not at the spider, but Moody's wand as the green magic is whisked into nothing on the end of it.
"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me," Moody says, looking right at Harry for a moment. Then he returns to the board and starts writing on it.
Meanwhile, Elixir's eyes return to normal as if judging Zarif is not in danger. "Avada Kedavra, a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it. You could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it. Now, if there's no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you've got to know. You've got to appreciate what the worst is. You don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he roars, and the whole class jumps again, now on edge after the entire demonstration. "Now…those three curses, Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus, are known as the Unforgivable Curses. Using any of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a one-way ticket to Azkaban. That's what you're up against. That's what I've got to teach you to fight. You need to prepare. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills…copy this down…" Moody instructs, still writing away with each set of words, that he gets louder at being more forceful than the rest of his writing.
"Sir," Zarif says, raising his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Trazax?" Moody questions, not looking around.
"The killing curse itself, is it light, energy, or perhaps solid-based spell?" Zarif questions.
Moody stops writing and turns to look at him now. "No one has ever tested it, but from my experience, I would say energy," he answers as the entire class turns their attention to him.
"I see…if energy-based. Is it not possible to stop it then?" Zarif questions thinking aloud now.
"Potter is a living breathing example of its possibility," Moody informs.
Zarif thinks about this, now not voicing his thoughts. 'If energy-based, then it should be possible to absorb the energy with something to neutralize it,' Zarif thinks, writing down what Moody had written on the board and his thoughts on another page.